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Breeding Range (Fig. 58). Common on the Southern Drift Plain and in the southern portion of the Missouri Coteau (within Stutsman, Kidder, Logan, LaMoure, Dickey, and McIntosh Counties); fairly common in the southern portion of the Agassiz Lake Plain (Richland and Ransom Counties), on the Northwestern Drift Plain, and in the northern portion of the Missouri Coteau (northwest of Stutsman and Kidder Counties); uncommon and local elsewhere in the Agassiz Lake Plain Region, on the Northeastern Drift Plain and Coteau Slope, and in the Turtle Mountains; rare and local on the Missouri Slope--recorded in summer, six miles south-southwest of Marshall in Dunn County.

Breeding Habitat. Virginia Rails inhabit wetlands that contain fairly dense stands of emergent vegetation. These include fens, seasonal ponds and lakes, and fresh, slightly brackish, moderately brackish, brackish, and subsaline semipermanent ponds and lakes. The predominant emergent plant species in wetlands that are occupied include giant burreed, western waterplantain, tall mannagrass, whitetop, slough sedge, cattails, phragmites, hardstem bulrush, alkali bulrush, and river bulrush.

Nesting. Breeding season: Late May to mid-August; peak, early June to late July. Extreme egg dates (10 nests): June 12 [1896] in Ramsey County (E. S. Bryant) to August 1 [1938] in Ward County (P. M. Stine). Extreme dates of dependent young (11 broods): June 22 [1965] in Stutsman County (RES) to August 4 [1974] in Burleigh County (R. Quanrud).

Nests are usually situated in fairly dense stands of emergent vegetation, and, as a rule, are at least partially domed over with emergent stems and leaves.

One nest was recorded in a nearly pure stand of hardstem bulrush, another in a mixture of alkali bulrush and wild barley, and a third nest was found in a nearly pure stand of alkali bulrush. Water depths at these nest sites were 3 inches, 0 (wet ground), and 7 1/2: inches, respectively (H. A. Kantrud, RES). On July 20, 1966, Keith D. Bayha found a nest with eggs in Stutsman County that was situated in upland prairie, several yards outside of a wet-meadow zone of a prairie pond.

Figure 58. Breeding Range of Virginia Rail.